The reference to any prior art in this specification is not, and should not be taken as, an acknowledgment or any form of suggestion that the prior art forms part of the common general knowledge in Australia.
The diagnosis and treatment of developmental disabilities is an important problem faced by modern society. The diagnosis of developmental disabilities has increased significantly over the past decade, and executive function weaknesses, such as attention difficulties are a particularly common feature characterising the cognitive impairments of many affected individuals.
There is now widespread agreement that there are three core cognitive attentional processes that may be impaired in those with developmental disabilities, namely: i) selective attention, which determines the ability to selectively attend to aspects of the environment; ii) sustained attention, which enables the individual to focus on a task and to remain sensitive to incoming information; and iii) executive attention, relating to the ability to focus on a fixed goal while ignoring conflicting information. Difficulties in any one of these attentional processes in childhood have been shown to have detrimental effects on learning and social outcomes during school years and beyond. The degree of attention deficiency experienced by an individual will depend on the extent to which they are affected by a developmental disability, and on the presence of any other intellectual disabilities. Attention deficits are highly prevalent in a range of developmental disorders, including Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs), Down syndrome, Williams syndrome, and Fragile X syndrome.
The early diagnosis and treatment of attention deficiency is essential for several reasons. First, it may lead to improved educational and social opportunities, and therefore to a better quality of life, for individuals affected by developmental disabilities. There are several difficulties with current approaches to assessing developmental disabilities. In particular, there is a general lack of objective methods for assessment, which typically involves the subjective assessment of an individual's state of affliction by a medical health professional. These assessments are difficult to repeat frequently, and each assessment requires a consultation with the medical professional. Although these behavioural ratings are informative, alone they are not sufficient because attention difficulties can stem from a number of underlying cognitive weaknesses. For instance several children with developmental disabilities share common profiles of inattention and hyperactivity, yet syndrome specific cognitive attention profiles have been shown. Therefore relying on purely behavioural ratings may result in overlooking core cognitive difficulties.
Traditionally, treatment for developmental disabilities has been implemented in the form of pharmaceutical intervention. However, this type of treatment has the disadvantage of being limited in its ability to accommodate for differences in attention impairment for individuals who suffer from other intellectual disabilities, and may be unsuitable for patients who have adverse reactions to the medications. Pharmaceutical interventions also only target behavioural weaknesses, and although psychostimulant medication has been shown to be effective in typically developing children in the short term, the long term effects of this intervention are not known.
The traditional approaches to diagnosing and treating developmental disabilities of an individual in isolation are also problematic. These methods involving case-by-case assessments are inadequate to effectively deal with the growing issue of childhood developmental disability at a national or global scale.
It is desired to provide a system and process that alleviate one or more difficulties of the prior art, or to at least provide a useful alternative.